Decouverte
by PutMoneyInThyPurse
Summary: Remember that boat on the Seine when Skinner was chasing Remy? Alfredo and Colette take a romantic cruise a year later, and hear the tale of the Flying Rat.


"This is such a cliché, Alfredo," Colette Tatou grins as he holds out a hand to help her onto the romantic restaurant on a barge on the Seine. "Only tourists take boats on the Seine!"

Alfredo Linguini grins, sheepishly. "Yeah, but I…whoa!" He trips, nearly falls into the water, and is only saved when she grabs him and hauls them both onto the deck.

_"Deux personnes, Monsieur?"_ the maitre d' asks with a smile.

_"Oui, merci."_ There really are only two of them today – Little Chef is off with his family. Someone's birthday, judging by the amount of icing sugar he was whisking when he summarily shooed them out of La Ratatouille.

They are led to a table on the aft side of the deck, overlooking the Rive Gauche. It's a wonderful, sunny afternoon, with a fresh breeze that makes the first leaves of springtime rustle with a language of their own. The maitre d' holds out a chair for Colette, and they settle into their seats as the boat moves off, watching the majestic city glide by. Seeing Alfredo glancing around with excitement, drinking everything in, the maitre d'hôtel seems to conclude that he is a tourist. "Welcome to our great city, M'sieu!" he gushes. "On your left is the Notre Dame Cathedral, where…"

"We live here, thanks," Colette cuts him off. But she's shocked to see a disappointed expression on Alfredo's face. Did he really want to hear the narrative? "Uh, go on," she recovers. She's gratified to see Alfredo's face light up again.

Beaming at his chance to recapture a generous tip, the maitre d'hôtel changes tack. "Ah, I see!" he says in a stage-whisper. "Looking to rediscover our great city from the perspective of_ l'amour_, eh?" He gives a conspiratorial grin. "Then it is not the tourist attractions you wish to hear of, but the most romantic stories of _notre belle Paris_. You 'ave come to the right place! On your left is ze building where the famous Crime Passionel took place last year! A girl had a rendezvous with her paramour, and…"

They tune him out as they study the menu. It is a serious business, and Alfredo wishes the Little Chef were here. He ends up following Colette's lead, and they order the beef stroganoff with crusty bread, and a carafe of house red. Once the maitre d' has poured a sample for Alfredo, he's handed it to Colette, she's tasted it and pronounced it good, and the wine has been poured, she goes back to what they were saying. "But you what, cheri?"

"Huh?"

"I said it was a cliché to take a boat on the Seine, and you said, "But…" But what?"

Alfredo blushes. It's hard to hide anything form Colette, even his silliest thoughts. "Well, it's not really one thing, it's two things. The first… no, maybe I should start with the second…" Why can he never figure out what to say? "There's this one thing that I could say first, but then the first maybe ought to be the second.. uh…"

"Mmhmm."

She gives him a sly I-understand-you-and-like-you-anyway look, and he melts and leans over and kisses her. Her lips are like heaven, like nothing he ever dreamed of, and her dark lashes flutter invitingly and… Drat, now his train of thought is completely derailed. "Where was I?"

Colette just grins. "The first reason."

"For what?"

"Why you like to take boats on the Seine," she says patiently, as if explaining to a four-year-old.

"Oh. Well." He takes a miniscule sip of wine. "When I first got here I wanted to do that kind of stuff, but I never had the money. And then when I had, I was always too busy. So I never really got to… you know… enjoy being in Paris, till you started taking me out."

"Oh, cheri." Touched by his words, Colette covers his hand with hers. "And what else?"

He gulps as though about to reveal a terrible secret. "And… well, it reminds me of Venezia. But I was kinda embarrassed to tell you that."

She cants an eyebrow in amused disbelief. "_Et pourquoi, cheri?_ Something wrong with Venice?"

"No, well, uh, see… I, uh, I'd…" He looks to the sky for assistance. The floating clouds give him courage, and he forges on: "I wanted to take you to Venezia for our honeymoon. But we ended up liquidating Gusteau's and never got to go anywhere. And I…" His face twists into a frown that Colette finds endearing. "I wanted to do something for you!"

Her heart filling, she hastens to reassure him. "But you did, Alfredo. You…"

"No!" he exclaims. "I wanted to take you to Venezia and maybe to show you my Umbria, and we ended up spending the time up ladders painting La Ratatouille. Some honeymoon, huh?" He's visibly upset by the time he finishes his speech, and looks steadfastly down at the tablecloth.

Colette contemplates telling him that there's still time to do all that, that they can go next summer, but in the end she says the one thing guaranteed to snap him out of his mood. "It wasn't a total loss. I quite liked the time with the paint-bucket on the drop-cloth."

"_Colette_!" Alfredo's blushing. _"__Siamo in un luoco pubblico__!"_

Heedless of his admonition not to speak of these things in public, she grins wickedly. "Talk about a _creative_ honeymoon."

"Colette!"

Her finger traces the rim of the wineglass, her smiling gaze aimed at its depths. "I remember you gained new appreciation for the uses of a paintbrush…"

"Co—ohhh." Alfredo groans and buries his face in his hands.

"…duct tape…"

All he can do is whimper, but she's relentless.

"…paint rollers…"

He's beyond scarlet now, well on the way to purple, and is saved by the maitre d' bringing their order. "_Voila, Monsieur et Madame!_"

It's a good dish, not super-gourmet but rich and homey, unlike the standard tourist fare offered by establishments like this, and they tuck in with relish. When their plates are cleared away, the maitre d'hôtel comes to present the dessert menu and ask them how they found their meal. "_Très bien, merci_," Colette thanks him, and is about to order dessert when the maitre d'hôtel swings round to gaze at the point they are gliding past.

"Look, Monsieur et Madame, you are passing by the point where one of ze strangest things 'appened that I have ever seen in all my years in Paris! A true mystery, but one which I am sure has to do with _l'amour_!"

Linguini looks up interestedly, but sees nothing exciting: a fairly bland section of wall with a few stone steps and a tree. Colette, not even bothering to look up, is still studying the _flambées_ and _sucrées_. It doesn't seem polite to just ignore the man, so he says, "Yeah?"

"_Oh oui, Monsieur!_" says the maître d'hôtel. "This is where we saw the Flying Rat!"

Colette's eyes slide slowly up from her menu as Linguini does a double-take. "The what?"

Delighted, the maitre d'hôtel waves his arms dramatically as he launches into his tale. "It was a day just like zis, Monsieur, just about a year ago now. We were on ze boat and a lovely couple just like yourselves was having dinner here, when suddenly we saw a crazy man on a Vespa driving along the riverside walkway, chasing a rat with… _mais non_, you will not believe me, you will say I am crazy."

"No we won't!" Linguini and Colette snap in unison. The man takes a step back in alarm. "Sorry," says Linguini. "Go on, please."

Looking from one to the other, the _maitre_ continues. "Ze rat was holding… _papers_ in his mouth! One of ze papers was white, but ze other… ah, ze other was mauve, _comme une lettre d'amour_. No question about it; it must have been a love letter!"

Linguini stares. A rat carrying a mauve letter and a white paper? There can't be too many in Paris who fit that description just a year ago. But it's impossible! He always imagined Little Chef found the papers and just brought them to him. He never imagined that there was any chasing involved…

"You _saw_ this?" says Colette, stunned. She never did find out how the rat had gotten the papers to Linguini, and the idea that this man is an eyewitness to the incident – well, it's absurd. Or too good to be true. She's reserving judgment for now. "You saw it last year with your own eyes?"

"_Oh oui, Madame. _I know it sounds incredible, but…"

Linguini's heart is pounding so hard it feels it might explode out of his chest. "What – what did this guy look like?"

"Oh," says the maitre dismissively, "a short, dark ugly little man, Monsieur. 'E looked like a house-elf out of _Harry Potter._ And he was wearing a white coat. I could not see too well, but perhaps he was a doctor.." Linguini and Colette exchange glances. " I guess he was the father of a girl, and I think ze rat was the pet of her _amour_. Yes, surely her lover sent her letters by the rat, and the rat was saving her love letter from his…"

"_Wait_ a minute." Colette's head is spinning. "You said Sk— the man was chasing a rat on a _Vespa_? And the rat _outran_ him?"

"_Vraiment_, it was a miracle, Madame." The headwaiter gestures extravagantly. "He was chasing after ze rat and almost caught him, but zen 'e fell down a flight of stairs. Those stairs right there!"

Colette and Linguini gasp as though they were watching it happen. "And then the rat got away?"

Sensing a big tip, the maitre warms to his tale. "Oh, not yet. Ze little man righted the Vespa and drove after him again! I have never seen anything like it. Ze rat was running along the fence right there, the man almost 'ad him in his hand…"

They're on the edge of their seats. "And then?"

"And zen the wind snatched a paper right out of the rat's mouth!" They gasp. "Ze little man was gaining on him, and he reached out to grasp the paper… And you know what the rat did?"

Twin pairs of staring eyes greet him, twin heads shake 'no'.

"Ze rat leapt off the parapet! 'E flew through the air and caught ze paper in his mouth. I 'ave never seen anything like it in my life! He could have fallen to the stone walkway and gotten killed…."

"Then what?" Linguini breathes, his eyes shining.

"Zen the rat landed on a barge opposite zis very one. I was serving a young couple just like yourselves, and the man chased the rat across the barge. Ze rat jumped onto zis boat, He could have fallen into the water and drowned. He caught the love letter and I waited for ze girl's father, the little man, to win and for the rat to fall to his death, but…"

"But what?"

"But then, something amazing happened. A gust of wind caught the papers from below, and lifted up the rat to sail high above the Seine!" Remembering his genuine wonderment at the scene, he points at the air above the tree where the rat once flew. "It was glorious! Ze papers he was ready to give his life for – they saved him! It was a miracle, a miracle of ze uplifting power of love, of sacrifice. For a moment, the rat became a bird. And he flew to the bridge, to safety, still carrying ze love letter."

These two, the maitre thinks, are suckers for romance. They're both staring, captivated, at an identical point in space, their eyes glistening. He must be a better storyteller than he thought! Feeling a bit anticlimactic, he says, "Ze man, ze doctor, tried to follow 'im, but of course he had no wings. He fell into the water, and the rat leapt onto the bridge and ran to safety."

"Skinner was soaking wet when he came into the office," Linguini whispers, and Colette nods, the rest of her body very still.

"_Hein?_" the maitre asks in confusion.

"_Incroyable_," Colette murmurs. "He almost died for you."

"Not for me," Linguini says slowly. "For doing what was right."

The maitre d' looks at them both, confusion now replaced by complete incomprehension.

"M'sieu," Colette finally smiles up at him, "how'd you like to know the _real _story that day with the rat?"

The maitre d' nods eagerly, and Colette begins.


End file.
